


Traveling Bodies

by lordnelson100



Category: TOLKIEN J. R. R. - Works & Related Fandoms, The Lord of the Rings (Movies), The Lord of the Rings - All Media Types, The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Bigotry & Prejudice, Bisexuality, Culture Shock, Dwarf Culture & Customs, Dwarf Gender Concepts, Dwarf/Elf Relationship(s), Elf Culture & Customs, Erebor, Explicit Sexual Content, Fluid Sexuality, Gender Identity, Gimli Gets Around, M/M, Minas Tirith, Past Relationship(s), Politics, Rohan, Strangers to Lovers, Those People Are Weird, War of the Ring
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-07
Updated: 2017-10-13
Packaged: 2019-01-09 22:23:07
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 11,792
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12285498
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lordnelson100/pseuds/lordnelson100
Summary: Chapter 2 added: now complete!Bodies, sex, gender, culture, politics: everything is different between them, and nothing fits.#I like it,Legolas thinks.How he looks, how he is.And it’s just too strange a thought to handle.





	1. From the Forest

**Author's Note:**

  * In response to a prompt by [yubiwamonogatari](https://archiveofourown.org/users/yubiwamonogatari/pseuds/yubiwamonogatari) in the [2000GigolasFics](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/2000GigolasFics) collection. 



> **Prompt:** Cultural differences, exploration, laughter.
> 
> TBH it's the War of the Ring so it's not a barrels of laughs, but there are moments of happiness in the face of near certain death?

Legolas spends the first nine tenths of his life entirely around his own people. It’s not until the year of the Battle of Five Armies that _other-than-Elven_ bodies are something he sees up close: and then when they are, it isn’t gradual. All at once it’s Dwarves and Men and a Halfling, it’s danger and sadness and anger and injustice and courage and a lot of other things, so overwhelming.

Everything shifts. He doubts his father and King. He loses his friend ( _Tauriel, don’t go, I’m sorry_ ). He feels pity and admiration for people he’s been taught to despise. He looks into the ancient, sad eyes of Mithrandir, and sees frail Men in their ruined town bring down a Dragon, and stubborn Dwarvish princes die, not for gold, but for each other. He begins to believe different things about the world he lives in.

He leaves the Woodland Realm and meets a Ranger.

He begins to spend time in the company of Elves from _outside_ his forest: First Age survivors and Exiles and their Dúnedain allies. These Dúnedain seem so little like the simple Woodmen or the traders of Dale. Mortal men, and yet they are fostered by Elrond and speak Sindar and sing lays of the Elder Days, and live, if they survive battle, for three times as long as other Men. It’s still really, really difficult to wrap his head around them—their brief, candle-like life-spans. Their scruffy faces. Their wrinkles and sunburn.Their strange humor, and poor hearing, and lots of other odd, unworkable weaknesses they live with.

His deep affection for Aragorn, the unnameable hope that Aragorn brings out in him: well, it’s shocking in one way, but not in another. Elrond, who is the wisest and the calmest Elf he has ever met, cherishes Aragorn with the affection of a foster-father, and the haughty Sons of Elrond embrace him too, and gracious, kindly Arwen.

And look at the entire history of the Eldar in Middle-earth! Heroes and love and alliances with Men, all the way down! Even if they all died long ago. It’s not _so_ hard or _so_ surprising, confessing to himself and others his devoted friendship with heroic Aragorn, heir to the Last Alliance of Elendil and Gil-Galad.

Not so hard, nor so surprising, as what happens next in his life.

#

The afternoon light is falling all broken through the trees in Lorien. Gimli is wading in the stream ahead of him, and the sunlight spills across his shoulders, his pale skin. He’s bare to the waist, and barefoot, like Legolas, because Legolas had the notion that they should hunt for fish with spears. It’s mere sport, not for need, but something they used to play at in the forest when he was a child, and Gimli is game. He’s a game sort of fellow, it turns out.

They reach a point where the stream broadens into a deep, brown, shaded pool,  teased by glittering dragonflies. Legolas sees the Dwarf’s broad shoulders tense, and one thick arm draw back, and with a quick accurate jab he’s got a fish on the end of his spear. It’s a big, ungainly mud-dweller, splashing and squirming, water is flying everywhere, and Gimli has turned and is laughing and making childish gestures of triumph at him.

 _I like it,_ Legolas thinks. _How he looks, how he is._ And it’s just too strange a thought to handle.

He’s a _Dwarf._ The mustache and beard, the unfamiliar texture of his thick, rippling red hair, the darker hair scattered across his chest and just above the band of his trousers, leading downward: those are unlovely and distasteful. All Elves think so.

Gimli’s eyes, deep and dark and clever and fierce, are nice, but you can’t call his face handsome. Interesting, maybe, and expressive. But not _fair to look on_ , no, _I could not say that_ , thinks Legolas.

His arms and chest and back are hard with muscle, they have undeniable masculine beauty, especially with his white red-head’s skin, scattered with freckles. But his waist is thick and his whole shape is just _different,_ too different. And there’s the inequality in height, which makes everything about how they relate physically awkward: it’s a joke, really, one he’s been making all the way down from the North.

That’s not even getting to the cultural strangeness of how Dwarves alter their bodies: Gimli has an intricate tattoo of a raven all over one bicep and shoulder, and a wide band of elaborate knots and scrolls on his chest, and on the other arm, the profile of the Lonely Mountain, circled by a wreath of flames, and _why that_? Why would you engrave the memory of a tragedy on your skin, even assuming you’re barbarian enough to mark yourself with needles and ink in the first place?

Not to mention the—the— _metal hardware_ , the Dwarf has a little shining metal hoop run through each of his ears, and now he has his mail off, it seems he has them on his chest, too, right through the—

Well. He’s not going to even ask.

“Here is what it is,” Legolas decides.  “My heart is moved by the fact that we have become friends, after all, especially in the midst of this sorrow and peril.  And so these little flashes of feeling I have, these moments of warmth and confusion, are just a sort of shock, an after-effect of the storms we have passed through.”

“I can take pleasure in this strange friendship, if I choose; and know him better, for the brief days that our Fellowship is like to last. Where is the harm? For he comforts me.”

Then he spies a ripple in the pool, and quickly has a great trout thrashing on his spear, larger than Gimli’s catch and more edible, so he taunts him, holding it high over his head, until the Dwarf tackles him into the pool and they both go down kicking and laughing.

# 

“Two-thirds male, and a third dams, that’s what they say,” says Gimli. “But what that’s based on is hard to find out. What, did someone fly about to all the seven peoples of Khazâd, scattered across the world, and make a count? And doesn’t reckon for some who choose to be neither.”

Legolas digests that, wondering about _choose_ and _neither_ , but there are a wealth of questions to ask, a swirl of confusions in his brain, so he ends up asking about something else. They are spread out on the soft turf of Lothlórien: with his fingers he explores the tiny, fragile flowers in the grass; with his mind, he explores the idea of lives and loves and bodies arranged in utterly different patterns than he has ever known.

“So, many among the Dwarves have no chance to ever wed, and are alone? That seems a sad fate.”

“Nay, how you Elves run differing things all together! It is true, it is more rare for us that Dwarrow and Dwarrowdam come together as One, and make man and wife. We treasure them, they who are mothers and fathers, for from them comes the little children. But that does not mean that therefore all others make no use of their bodies!”

He laughs. “That would be useless and lonely. People find shield-brothers or forge-friends or craft-sisters, you see. Some there are who love only their favorite work, and have no interest in matters of desire, of course; it is for them to say so. But for the rest, so long as you wrong no one’s vows, fuck who you like!”

The Elf’s eyes widen and a smile tugs at his lips as he looks at his friend. “I am not going to tell you that all this is very strange to me, for that goes without saying, I think. But,” he says, with thoughtful glance. “I had heard differently: that Dwarves take only one spouse, and for life, as do we Eldar.”

“Oh, aye! If you find your One, that is _different_. That is the true wedding, from which we do not turn. And that may be between lad and lass, or the two may be of the same type. And they who lose their One go in sorrow still, and do not take a second, after.  And some love one they cannot have, and so never will take another. For we are a jealous and stubborn people, in truth!”  Gimli is sober for a moment, then shrugs. “I expect it is all different for your kind!” 

“Indeed,” Legolas says. “So much so that it would take a very long afternoon to tell it all. And there is this to complicate matters: we have many teachings, and several widely sundered peoples who believe different things. And in any case, though the teachings of our elders on marriage and chasteness are strict, we live very long lives and so—there are few who have never strayed from our ideals, or laid aside some of the rules.”

“Ah, I see! The longer you go on, the greater the amount of experiences; the more chance you break some rule or other, if you have a lot of them. And you yourself, Master Elf—from which teachings do you stray?” Gimli grins at him, and wriggles an eyebrow, so it is possible he expects only a jesting answer in return. 

“Oh,” says Legolas quietly,”I am no good guide. I am counted strange in my ways, careless and light-hearted. I have never met one whom I would keep to, yet. To the dismay of my father the King.” He rolls over on his stomach and lays his head on his folded arms. That is a less happy line of thought.

The Dwarf lies beside him on his back, staring at the golden leaves overhead; warm, solid. He has got out his pipe. Without looking, Legolas feels him go through the familiar gestures of packing and lighting the pipe; then the scent of pipeweed.

After a while, Gimli says, “Do you note it?  We none of us are wed nor have children, on this Quest; nor even are promised, it appears, except Aragorn, and his Arwen is daughter to a sort of general in this War.”

“You think Elrond and Mithrandir chose it so?”

“I doubt it was an accident.”  He is still staring at the sky. “If we do save the world, I think Lord Elrond did not wish to make more widows and orphans in it, for it is doubtful that we ourselves will see the victory.” 

Legolas has no answer to that. So he turns onto his back as well, and puts his hand over Gimli’s and presses it. Together they wordlessly watch the eerie, seasonless boughs of Lorien sighing in the breeze

 

#

When they later tell the story, either of them, they usually claim the first time they laid eyes on one another was during the Council of Elrond; when Gimli shouts at him. It makes such a fitting start to the tale.

Really, though, Legolas glimpses the mission of Dwarves well before that. He sees, with guilt, that one of the Lonely Mountain emissaries is from Thorin’s Company. He does not recall the name, not until he is told it by Elrond, but he knows the figure: a big, red, shaggy fellow, with tremendous eyebrows and a silly great beard, threaded through innumerable little iron clasps.

 He remembers—not exactly what he said, but how he’d _been_ to the Dwarves, that year.  Contemptuous, bullying, cold-hearted. He regrets it. He’d been ashamed, truth to tell, even back then. Tauriel, with her good-nature and courage, her ready affection, had shamed him, even if he’d been shocked and confused at her actions.

 And then, the whole rest of the tragedy of the Battle of Five Armies. The very reason he’d travelled forth from the Woodland Realm, the reason he’s met Aragorn, the path that led here.

 Perhaps they won’t remember him; Elves must all look much alike to Dwarves, just as _they_ did to Elves. He looks out of the corner of his eye at them. The gruff, red emissary is already staring his way, saying something low to those around him.  A younger Dwarf, a warrior-looking fellow with a mighty axe on his back and a chain-mail hauberk, jerks around and glares at Legolas, a look of scorn in his eyes. Then he turns away. So much for that hope.

 Legolas thinks for a while that he might go and make peace, while the Fellowship is readying itself to set out from Rivendell. There are weeks to do it in. But he never does.

 Everything he says to the Dwarf for the first weeks of the Quest comes out wrong. He tries for teasing, wit, light-hearted raillery; it all comes out sounding like Father at his worst, sarcastic, indifferent, unkind. Gimli in return treats everyone else in the party with a bold, gruff ease, except for Legolas, whom he mostly ignores—but when he does speak to him, it is to bite back, for he has a ready, witty tongue. Who would have thought it of a Dwarf?

Later, people will say, “And they hated each other at first,” but it is not so, not for Legolas. In truth, from the very outset, he dislikes being disliked by Gimli. It stings him, he cannot say why. Perhaps because he loves Aragorn and reveres Mithrandir: and both of them look exasperated with him when he teases the Dwarf to temper _again_ , and thinks in dismay, _but I did not mean to_!  And yet that is not the whole story. It is not only because Aragorn and Gandalf are disappointed in him. He is unhappy with himself.

It is is easy to blame it on the Dwarf’s mistrust, on his pride and stubbornness, on the ease with which he takes offense.

After Galadriel, after she models what sympathy can be and do, and he sees Gimli respond like a veritable poet, he knows what he must do. He goes to the Dwarf and asks if he will come wander in his company.

When they have walked some distance under the never-fading towering trees, they come across a lovely grotto, where rippling stone makes a steep-sided cup for a small, dark pool.  Countless golden leaves have arranged themselves on its surface. Legolas sits, and dangles his legs over the edge, and the Dwarf comes and sits beside him.

“It was I who arrested your father and Thorin, years ago, during the Quest for Erebor.”

“I know it,” said Gimli.

“And I was proud and ill-natured to them—I who little understood their need or their errand. I thought I hated them, and yet I knew nothing—only what I had been taught.” 

“It would seem,” said Gimli, with his brow furrowed and face grave, “That what I thought I knew of Elves was scarcely the whole of it.”

“I would put it right with you, if I could, and have your friendship.” His words sound awkward to his own ears: bare and unlovely. Legolas steals a look at the Dwarf’s face. He half-expects a cold answer. He wonders if his own face looks hopeful. 

Gimli pauses a while, but at last looks up into Legolas’ eyes with a glance that is not unkind. “Why then—you may have it.” He gives him wry, faint smile, partly hidden in his beard. “I will meet you half-way, as we say at home, since you are bold enough to try the thing.”

There is a yellow leaf in his red hair, drifted down from the golden boughs on high. Legolas plucks it out, and then suddenly laughs. A feeling of relief swells in his throat.

“And yet I have been told that Dwarves are grudge-holders and resentful,” says the Elf, greatly daring. “But perhaps, you shall teach me otherwise?”

 “Oh, I shall put you right in many things, Master Elf, seeing as you are in need of it.” To the surprise of Legolas, Gimli puts his arm easily around his shoulder, just as a friend might. Some of the soreness and sorrow that have bit at him like a wound since Moria ease and soften, all at once. In companionable quiet, they sit and watch the setting sun turn all the woods around them ablaze.

#

After Lorien, the events of the Quest run on and on, a terrifying, exhilarating, exhausting chain that takes them from death and despair and back again to hope, and even unexpected joy. The Quest rests upon the edge of a knife, not once, but  again and again; it hangs there, trembling, over the edge of an abyss, but does not yet fall.

There is no time for Legolas to think about his friend’s words in Lórien; except when he does. A low, husky voice, amused, says _fuck who you like, if you wrong no one_ , in his head, at stray moments.

The Battle of Helm’s Deep remains for the rest of his life a vivid memory: his first taste of true despair. First, the dagger to his heart when Aragorn’s dear, strong warrior form is dragged to the high cliff by a galloping foe, and he falls, and they cannot find him. Then, even as he returns to them and Legolas’ heart leaps up, there comes the reckoning with their true odds in the battle to come. The vast, uncountable sea of foes, their torches blazing in the rainy night. The brave fewness of the defenders: they are putting helmets on _children_ , for the love of pity, and swords in their hands, and _they, we, are all going to die tonight_.

And then he and Gimli and Aragorn, and all these brave, too-few Men of Rohan, are fighting on and on, and the Dwarf is counting slain enemies with him, _three, four, five_ , and there comes a fierce _pleasure_ to it. That is not good, not admirable, but it is real, _twelve, fifteen, seventeen_ , and he and Gimli share it. His friend is fearless and fiercely gleeful in battle. It is a strange feeling to be having a sort of conversation in the bloody roil of combat, scanty in words, made mostly in glances and shouts and the dance of slaughter. Even he and Aragorn don’t have exactly that, what he and his Dwarven comrade have.

 And then he loses Gimli in the darkling, bloody crowd.

The day after the battle, they are resting in their tent.  Legolas listens, idly, to the sounds of the camp. The stamp of hooves, horses’ gentle breath, blown out. Soldiers shouting to one another and messengers running by on foot. The slight creak of tents, the snap of banners, for the wind out of the mountains is always at them, here on the plains of Rohan. The golden light of afternoon comes in through the canvas, filtered, softened.

 He looks at Gimli’s profile; he is pale, beneath the white bandage tied over his scalp wound and his eyes are closed, but he is not asleep. He has on only his old, soft shirt, falling open at the neck, and is wrapped in a blanket. Legolas, too, has laid down in but his leggings and cloak, for they have no watch to stand. They are free until the host rides again on the morrow.

 “I could go search us out some ale,” says the Dwarf, half-heartedly. “These Riders are free with it.”

 “Do not stir,” says Legolas, “I will fetch it, if you like.”

 “Are you nursing me, fool?” says Gimli, with affection.

 “I must look after you, it seems,” says the Elf. “You do it but poorly.”

 Gimli turns to him with some joke on his lips, but Legolas does not meet him with a jest in turn. Instead, he reaches out, touches the bandage on his forehead lightly. A gleam of late, slanting sun traces a disarrayed lock of Gimli’s ruddy hair, and Legolas runs his fingers through it; cups his hand to his jaw. He is quiet, and yet Gimli answers something he has not said aloud.

 “Whist, do not grieve. I am still whole,” he says to Legolas. “I worried for you, too, seeing the bodies of the poor fellows from Lórien. I do not exactly understand how it is, with the Elves; about your land across the sea, where they say your spirits walk again after you fall. But I would have you—not go there, while I breathe, I would keep you here with us.”

That’s what he says; Legolas hears _here with me_.

Legolas kisses him. Ah, his mouth is warm. The bristly feel of his beard is different, but Gimli kisses back with ease and without apparent surprise. Indeed, his hands go into Legolas’ hair, and pull him in. Legolas has one hand on the curve of Gimli’s bicep, at once hard and silken smooth, that is good. And his friend darts a warm tongue between his lips, _oh, that is surprising,_ but good, too. He didn’t know it would feel like this, hot, natural, easy, _I am going to take the things I want, we will do them, I may have him, if I like._

They draw together, and Legolas slides a hand right up under his shirt, and Gimli _twitches_ and makes a _lovely_ noise _,_ when Legolas runs his hand all the way across his chest and finds the little metal ring he seeks. They are both hard where their bodies are pressed together.

And then. And then the Dwarf pauses, and draws back, with his hand flat against Legolas’ chest. They are both panting. Legolas knows what he will say, before he says it. Had he not thought it to himself, only minutes ago?

“We should not. Fair lad, we should _not_.” Gimli’s expression is pained.  “We are for the road in the morning, with Aragorn and the King and Mithrandir. You would not—you would not change the blade of your weapon, the night before a battle, for fear you would ruin the balance of the thing, what makes it familiar to your hand.”

Legolas nods, dumbly. He doesn’t even disagree. It’s just.

Gimli rolls away from him and struggles into some clothes, and makes for the tent flap.  “I will go and find some very cold water, for myself. Ah, this damned war.”

The Elf keeps hold of his tongue. He does not call after him, or try to pull him back. There is no one to see him lay his face down on the sleeping mat and tear at his own hair.

In a while he puts himself to rights and goes out. He spends the night speaking quietly with the soldiers of Rohan, and later Aragorn, and joins those standing watch. He knows how to put on dignity and calm and Elven aloofness, and he does. No one will see anything but the heroic archer of Mirkwood and companion of the Quest.

“For that is what I am,” Legolas says to himself. “It would be an error to alter good friendship into aught else. I may let go of these other feelings, these strange strugglings of the body and the heart. For I have ever gone lightly as to love, and taken no harm from it. And besides, he is a Dwarf, and I, one of the Eldar.  What folly, what folly it would be!” 

#

In the morning the last Host of the West will ride to the Black Gate of Mordor, to draw the Eye of the Enemy to them.

In the aftermath of the victory on the Pelennor Fields, Gimli and Legolas are quartered in a little ancient stone house, high up among the back streets of the city, right against the Mountain. It seems to have been a guest house once, or even a servant's lodge, behind a high, old-fashioned mansion, now empty. The street fell out of fashion long ago, someone told them. The rich left, except a few barren eccentrics and recluses, still tracing out their crumbling scrolls of heraldry. Then the War came, and even they were gone.

But with all the massive armies now encamped and mustering, the Steward has requisitioned all empty houses. Few soldiers want the high-up streets: too far from the buttery, the streets too steep to climb every evening. The Elf and the Dwarf rather like their little perch, however. Legolas because it has a tiny garden, with an old, gnarled olive tree in a cracked stone planter, and also a balcony that looks out over the city, from which he can look up and see the stars. Gimli, because the small house is made of stone, antique and curiously carved, and has the high shoulder of Mindolluin behind it.

 They’ve been here only a handful of days, while the final plans were shaped. Now it is the last evening.

There’s a nice fountain in the street; a marble tub in the guest house; easy enough to fetch water. A luxury to get all the way into a bath, and scrub oneself thoroughly clean, after the road. Legolas half listens as Gimli complains comfortably about Gondor’s poor plumbing and how easy it would be to build steam baths and pipe hot water.

There’s a nice big bedstead, too: a shame that any bedding the fine folk used is long gone. They have to make do with a straw mattress they scavenge, and spread their camp rolls on that, throwing on top an old sheet. They do have wine, though, to go with their simple rations of bread and oil and dried fish. And a small fire on the hearth, for the March air is still chill, even here in the South. Practically luxury. They both only have a little clothing on; things lazily pulled on to sit around drinking wine, after bathing.

They are lying side by side on the bed. Gimli’s mass of red hair is wet and dark  washing,  and trails over one shoulder. He’s downing wine from a chipped old cup. Legolas turns on his side, and studies his face.

“There is no more road,” Legolas says, at last. “A little ride to the Gates tomorrow and the next day. But we have come to the end of the Quest, you know.”

“So we have. A long road, eh? And thou hast borne me faithful company, true friend, _umral_.”  There is a husky thickness to the Dwarf’s voice that Legolas has never heard.  

Gimli turns to him, then, and puts one hand in Legolas’ hair, stroking, gazing at him solemnly.  He runs one finger over the shape of his friend’s ear, teasing, and Legolas turns his face into Gimli’s hand. They pull off their few damp clothes, and then it’s just them: their warm living bodies, their fast-beating hearts, which tomorrow they will throw against the inevitable, pitiless Enemy.

Gimli pulls him roughly towards him: kisses him on on either eyelid, on his jaw, on his mouth, at last. Then he says, low and rough, “Lie back, you pretty fellow.” And Legolas does.

The Dwarf takes his strong hands, and runs them all the way down Legolas’ long body. He pauses to caress the ridge of his hips, his strong thighs. He gazes with appreciation at the other man’s cock, and Legolas can feel himself rising to that gaze. He hasn’t even been _touched_ yet, there, but Gimli looking at him, and running those big, calloused hands over his stomach and hips and thighs: this is just _doing things_ for him, and he’s hard as iron. And then Gimli _does_ touch him, takes his erection in hand and strokes, and strokes.

It feel meltingly good, unreasonably, unbearably better than touching himself. He wants Gimli to look at him like this forever, eyes dark and eyelids lowered, touch him like this forever, not let go.

Gimli’s own cock is hard, and flushed; it looks thick and big and good against the nest of dark red brown hair, as he kneels naked between Legolas’ legs. And Legolas reaches for him, but his friend laughs and pushes him back, and he’s sliding down further on the bed and bending his head. And oh! He puts his mouth, hot and wet, over the head of Legolas’ cock, and at the same time he reaches down between Legolas’s legs and touches him, there, probing roughly.

And that’s it. It’s too much. His brain has time to think, _it’s too soon, don’t want it to be over, mustn't_ , but he’s gone, and comes and comes into Gimli’s mouth, and Gimli is actually sliding him in deeper as he does, and sucking him right off and looking up at him as he does. It’s a hot, filthy hot, sight.

As Legolas is lying there still, utterly spent, the Dwarf rears back, kneeling again, between his spread legs.  And with gritted teeth and parted lips, sucking in his breath in gasps, Gimli strokes his own cock with one hand, and teases his own nipple with the other, his broad chest gleaming and flushed with perspiration. He throws his head back, curses and spills. Like he’s a wet dream of Legolas’s come to life. An image of desire that a year ago he would never, never have foreseen.

 Then Gimli topples down at his side, not a dream; heavy and very real,  and huffing out contentment. They are sticky, and damp with sweat, and rapidly, chilled.

So Legolas rolls out of the bed; Gimli makes a protesting grab at him and misses. He scoots in an undignified way, laughing and shivering: to throw a little wood in the fire, to wet some cloths, to come back to the bed and clean both of them up—Gimli squawks at the cold wet cloth—and then he grabs the wine-skin and fills their cups again. Then he get fully back into bed, and pulls up the sheet. They drink a little, getting warm again.

As Gimli starts to fall asleep, Legolas says, “If we are ever back here ( _he avoids saying if we both live, and the world does not end_ ), I am going to have you properly.”  “Oh, shall you indeed, Master Elf,” says Gimli, without opening an eye.

Legolas falls into a deep and restful sleep. Not reverie, but real sleep, profound and refreshing as water in a desert. He dreams he is walking with Gimli in a great and endless hall, full of shining crystal lanterns that reflect on a floor of dark silver glass. Their steps are echoing. There is a great pair of carven doors at the end of this hall; runes he cannot read are over the door, and he feels as if he half-sees a frieze of sculpted figures who are acting out an ancient story, full of joy and sorrow, but he cannot stop to make it out. They are passing through the doors. To where, he does not know.

He wakes. It is dawn. Gimli is on the other side of the room, putting on his mail shirt. His weapons are on the table, and he has laid out those of Legolas, too, the bow and knives. There is no more time.

#


	2. From the Mountain

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Gimli's love life is a mess, the world comes close to ending and then doesn't, and those who wouldst hate, shall.

A few months before the messenger from Mordor turned their lives upside down, Gimli, son of Gloin, was putting the finishing touches to a trading session in the Blue Mountains. He had six weeks of hard hiking ahead of him, to get he and his partners back to the Lonely Mountain at a good pace, so perhaps he should have gone early to bed.

He did not. He was by the hearth of his old friend Gnarr, a rascally comrade of his early youth, and they were well into destroying a barrel of good ale. Ah, _those were some fair, naughty times we made of it_ , he thought. Gnarr was an excellent mine-boss and expert in powder and blasting, and a balls-out, granite-hewn madman. He had a bald head tattooed with the runes for “Fuck off!” surrounded by skulls and flowers, and an extra long beard, down to his waist, to make up for the smoothness on top. Gimli had once seen him break a Man’s jaw in a roadside inn, who had rubbed his head for luck.

Well, he _had been_ a wildman; he was freshly married now. Undergoing that mysterious transformation people went through, love, which changed them into someone happier, and yet a bit of a stranger to their old friends. Gimli congratulated him (the barrel of best ale was meant as a gift), but could not help feeling a little inward sense of loss. Gnarr had been an great forge-friend as well: endless endurance in bed, and an inventive, lewd imagination.

He must admit, though, that Gnarr’s wife was a spectacular beauty, and good-humored as well: far better than he deserved. Mavi, herself a top-level smelter who could throw a good punch in a fight, had a round pretty face accented by the fine diamond stud she wore in her nose, matched by a row of gleaming opal and gold earrings lining each of her ears, and more opals in her beard. But it was her _tits_ , by the Maker’s hammer: she was gliding about their warm house in this translucent jacket, sewn with tiny white sequins, through which you could glimpse the circle of her brown nipples, and _balls_ , Gnarr was a lucky bastard, and he needed to look away.

“Gnarr was telling me tales of all the trouble the pair of you used to get up to in his bachelor days,” Mavi said, looking slyly at him from beneath long lashes. _Oh damn, she’s seen me staring_ , thought Gimli. “It’s a miracle he lived long enough to wed me,” she continued. “I’m glad he had a friend to look after him in his mad ways.”

“The miracle was that you would have me, my beauty,” Gnarr said gallantly, toasting her with his tankard.

“Aye, but should we not thank friend Gloinul for his good care of you, as well?” Mavi said, bending over the table (quite low) and putting one hand on Gimli’s.

“No need, no need,” said Gimli, half-choking and trying not to look.  Gnarr kicked him under the table. Then he punched him in the shoulder, hard, to drive his point home.  Light dawning, as the pair of them hauled him towards the bedroom.

“Right!” said Gimli, ‘Then I am at your service!”

He stayed an extra day.

#

The Prancing Pony in Bree was crowded and full of pipe-smoke and noise and questionable characters, as usual. Old Barliman Butterbur had dropped an enormous wheel of cheese on his foot while attempting to fetch it from the cellar and scold Nob and Hob at the same time, so he was out of order for the week.

His cousin Bellflower Butterbur was run off her feet, stepping into his place as host for the nonce. But she was a great strapping lass, six feet high, with chestnut curls and a bosom that near-overflowed the bodice of her dress, like a great creamy head on the top of a well-pulled pint of ale, looking as if it were _just about_ to spill out. Tantalizing to the eye, and tongue. Sturdy and sharp as she was, though, she managed the crowded room well, with the help of her well-trained lot of Big People and Little People. 

Gimli’s own crowd were giving a bit of trouble, he saw; it was only their way, to laugh loudly and shout and toss things about, when they were in the mood. But closing time was drawing near, and his friends were starting in on a drinking song that he knew for a fact contained fifty verses, each more obscene than the rest, and the big armor-smith Palli was about to pass out, if he were any judge.

So he began dwarf-handling them off to bed himself, hauling first one, and then another, to the door that led to the sleeping rooms, ignoring their complaints and their beery singing into his ear. Once several got headed in the right direction, the rest followed: like armor-wearing sheep, they were.

“Ooooo, thank you, my dearie! You’ve saved me a great lot of trouble, there!” Bellflower sank into a chair, panting, while Hob and Nob were hastening around the room, wiping up spills and taking away empties.

“Ah, you looked like you were yearning for your bed, my lass,” said Gimli, enjoying a last pipe, and wiping the sweat from his forehead: moving Palli had been like hauling a sack of rocks.

“Did I?” said Bellflower, musing. “Why, I have to get up so early, to start breakfast for all this lot, it hardly seems worthwhile to go to sleep at all!”

“Does it not?” said Gimli. “But what of rest?”

“Well, there’s rest and then, there’s rest,” she said, reflectively. “Perhaps I have a mind for company, instead. For instance, I am sure you could tell me many fine tales of your journeys, Master Dwarf. Why, what an enormous axe you have with you!” she said, curling one long brown lock around her finger. “Have you battled lots of foes on your way?”

“Aye,” he replied, taking his pipe out of his mouth.  “And slain them dead, too.”

The next day he yawned his way through the long miles of their road; and yet he made good time, and sang along with his fellows as they marched.

#

 When the dark messenger of Sauron came to the door of the Lonely Mountain that summer, a bleak sorrow fell over the face of his King Dáin, and that of Gimli’s father Glóin, and even indestructible old Dwalin.

 “The time of my thought is my own to spend,” Dáin told the foul ambassador, and refused him the answer he sought; the brave, game old man. Two hundred years ago, at Azanulbizar,  the Ironfoot had shed his blood for Durin’s Folk. At Five Armies, he had ridden to their rescue, and afterwards had gathered his wounded people and given them heart to rebuild Erebor, stained as it was by dragon filth and the blood of dead soldiers sinking into the plains around it.

Long, wisely, and kindly had Dáin ruled. He deserved better than to face the terrifying return of their most hated enemy, in what should have been his years of peaceful old age. So did his loving father Glóin deserve better, and the others who suffered to retake the Mountain. So did they all.

“When the Enemy of Mordor learns that we will not yield,” said Dwalin, leaning on his axe, “He will not leave the Lonely Mountain be, a fortress stored with his enemies, to stand between East and West. He will fall upon us.”  The King nodded, and all his councillors bowed their heads. The Khazâd feared Sauron, but they hated him more; he could not make them his servants with his lies. Their people would go to their destruction rather than give in. And then would end the last of the great kingdoms of the Dwarves remaining in Middle-earth.

 “Then by my beard, we will ready ourselves! We must send to the West at once, to Elrond in Rivendell, and to the Wizard, if he can be found. They must know that the Enemy is seeking Bilbo, and the Shire, with dark talk of Rings. They must hear that He has become fearless enough to speak in his own cursed name, and all but openly threatens war in the North.”  With his son sturdy Thorin Stonehelm beside his chair, old Dáin drew himself up, jutting out his shaggy beard of red and white, and stamping his metal boot upon the throne room floor till it rang. He was resolute.

 “I will send you, Glóin,” said the King Under the Mountain, “For you have dealt with Elrond before, and are friend to the Shire-folk as well. But you are one of our elders now—” He held up one hand to stop Glóin’s protest, “As I am myself. Though we think ourselves to be fine old warriors still. We know not what council will befall there. There must go some who are not silver-beards, who can be sent onwards into whatever fierce battle may come.”

 “I will go,” said Gimli. “Though it be to the halls of the arrogant Elves.”

In the gathered crowd in the council room, he saw his mother turn away in sorrow. His heart smote him, as he remembered her long wait for news, years ago in the time of Thorin’s Company, in their halls of exile in the Ered Luin. He remembered the day the raven came,  with word from Erebor: Glóin still  living, and the Mountain retaken. But Thorin, and Fíli and Kíli —

 She had both their packs ready by the next morning. She was singing as she tended the fire and readied them some breakfast, before the road.

 The afternoon before he left, another old acquaintance approached him. Gimli was in his workshop, storing things away; he thought it might be some time, ere he returned. Úlfketill appeared quietly in the doorway, watching Gimli at his work for several minutes without speaking. Gimli waited for him to begin.

 The other was a grave Dwarrow, several decades older than Gimli, wealthy and clever. Very handsome, he was accounted, with deep black hair and beard that fell in long ringlets, and an elegant way of carrying himself. Arm rings of silver studded with black jet set off his strong biceps, and a fall of silver bangles did the same at his wrist. _He has made himself proper for this conversation_ , thought Gimli sadly, _as if it will make a difference._

 “I don’t suppose you’ve changed your mind, while you were travelling?” Úlfketill’s voice was restrained, as if he willed himself to speak calmly.

 “I did not,” he replied gently, “I told you I should not.” He went on folding up his finer tools in rolls of felt, tying each off neatly as he went.

 “I would make you an excellent partner. My share of the new iron mine is—”

 “You need not reckon it,” Gimli cut him off, a little more sharply. “For it will make no matter to me.”

 The other Dwarf picked up a cluster of crystal that lay on a workbench, and turned it over and over in his hands.

 “I wish you had never lain with me,” he said bitterly at last, his eyes cast downwards. “Since you do not even take me seriously.”

 “I am sorry. I was careless, and I did not see your heart,” said Gimli, “Nor did you tell me what was in it. Neither was that fair to me. Still, I am sorry for you.”

 “Why will you not even _think_ on it?”  The words seemed to burst from the other, against his will, through gritted teeth. _He sees it is hopeless, and yet he must speak._ Gimli could see the problem, clearly enough. But he could not solve it.

“I do not like you well enough,” Gimli replied. “There it is.”

 “You are a hard-hearted cur, son of Glóin,” Úlfketill went out, angrily slamming the door. The sound echoed in the silence.

 By the ways of their kind, it was the other who was at fault. One was meant to be gallant about the games of body and desire, and stone-tough; to take one’s falls and not complain of it, like a weak child, whether one was Dwarrow or Dam. He had made no promises, offered no coyness.

 But the encounter left a sad, cold feeling in Gimli’s stomach. It was not a lucky portent for his journey. 

#

 All his life, Gimli had lived near Elves, and yet never _near_ them.

They were woven through the stories of his family, his Mountain, his people. He has seen them as they bargained in the markets of Dale, and passed their processions in the woods from time to time. They are not enemies, in this era: their two kinds nod, perhaps exchange word of Orcs or other dangers seen on the way. Yet he has never held a conversation with one, never shared a meal, or fought by their side.

 His father Gloin has done all of these, and been hosted in this very Imladris, long ago in the Year of the Dragon. It was strange for Gimli to think that, had he been allowed to go with Fíli and Kíli, as he’d begged, then he, too, would have these memories: would have seen Rivendell, and the Forest Realm, been feasted and imprisoned by Elves, helped and hindered, met the much-resented Thranduil, and fought at last alongside them at Five Armies. _Not if you shared their fate, you wouldn’t_ , he remembered, grimly. _No memories shared, no lessons learned, by the dead._

As he and Gloin and the others from Erebor stood in one of the countless courtyards of Rivendell, all impractical flimsy fountains and fragile-looking columns, his father pointed out the son of Thranduil among the crowd of Elves.   _Why, there is nothing to him_ , Gimli thought.  Smooth hair, smooth face, improbably tall, but meager of body: like the rest of them. He turned away.

 This Aragorn, the mysterious descendent of ancient Kings: now, _there_ one felt something to lay hold of: courageous, yet gentle; deeply intelligent, yet with no preciousness, no haughtiness about him.  It was a strange thing, to feel so ready a trust for a Man, and yet Gimli could not deny the pull of him. But then again, he appeared to be the confidant of the Elves, speaking their tongue, clearly at home in the eye-deceiving maze of this strange house. Perhaps he should not be so quick to ally himself, after all.

 During the Council, the bare-faced Prince of Mirkwood, this _Legolas_ , spoke with infuriating assurance, as if the dark dangers of the Ring were a matter to be settled only by the Elves and their hand-picked Dúnedain. The Man of Gondor liked it no more than the Dwarves did!  Soon the whole Council fell into an uproar, and Boromir spoke most forcefully against the slippery connivance of Elven opinion.

 Yet it was Gimli himself who found himself losing his temper and shouting, “Never trust an Elf!” in the midst of the scrum. An old, old teaching among the Khazâd, this was!  But not exactly politic to speak it before others, especially given that they _were being hosted by them_. Then, too, his family owed a great debt to Elrond himself, for his aid in the Quest for Erebor.

 There were very great matters of the Ring to decide and the new Quest to arrange: to be sure, for the following hours, his attention was on those important things.

But when all broke up, he saw that his father Glóin has not forgotten his outburst. He came to Gimli and gave him a sharp look under his great red brows, and laid a gauntleted hand on his shoulder. His son sighed, and together they approached Elrond, who was conferring in a low voice with Gandalf. “My Lord Elrond, I apologize for my words about your people,” said Gimli.

“Accepted, though I did not take offense,” replied Elrond, “for it did not seem that you were speaking to me personally.” He paused, giving the Dwarf a meaningful look.

 Gimli bowed, and did _not_ volunteer to go make sweet with the person at whom he had shouted.

#

The early weeks of the Fellowship contained much walking, with bouts of climbing, scrambling, running, and back again to walking. The Dwarf kept one eye on the landscape, and one on the Fellowship of strangers he was meant to trust with his life and the lives of their peoples.

In his person, this Elf confused the eye. His smoothness of face resembled youths from the other mortal races, the Men of Dale whom Gimli knew well, or even Frodo or the other Hobbits; hairless skin that spoke to young age, to vulnerability—but Legolas had neither. Or his visage was like human women: except the shape of brow and jaw said _fellow_ , very clearly. The long, straight, floating hair, of uncanny paleness: well, it was Elf hair, not like that of people at all. Perhaps like the mane of some pretty beast?

The body: masculine, though again with the chilly smoothness. The Elf had odd customs about dress, or rather, undress. When members of the party bathed in a stream or changed their clothes, most made some effort to privacy. Not the Elf: to the blushes of the hobbits, and, it seemed, the Man of Gondor, Legolas simply dropped his kit to the ground, and bent to wash or dress, with no attempt to move off or turn away. A woodland creature, indeed.

It was a pretty body, clean-limbed and strong, though slender. The great war-bow he carried must take a great deal of strength to draw; his shoulders were hard, broad in proportion to his slender waist. His form seemed impossibly unmarked, given he was said to be centuries old;  without scar, and also bare of tattoo or jewelry of the skin. As all adults of the Khazâd race wore such things, to his eyes the Elven body read as not just ageless, but weirdly sexless: blank of the signposts and triumph-marks of desire that said _this is what I like_ and _here is who I’ve been_.

Gimli did not _mind_ seeing this body: indeed, he looked his fill. Why should he not? It seemed clear the Elf himself did not think it bawdy. He had no more shame than would a cat. The archer showed a nice-looking cock, a sweet, rounded ass,  attractive pink nipples that stood out against his pale chest; a wide mouth, fair to look at.  But it was impossible to guess how, or if, he made use of them. No word of a lover, male or female or otherwise, passed his lips.

Tall or short, male or female or blended, of his people, or of some other race: this Dwarf of many journeys has seen a great deal of bodies, one way or another. He would not pretend to himself that the thought did not pass his mind, _what would it be like to tup such a one_?  But it was hard to get much heat behind it, when the Elf showed no more hint of lustiness then might a graceful carven figure in stone, like those in the gardens of Imladris.

#

On a winter sunrise, they crested the rising plain and saw the spine of the Misty Mountains clear before them, three peaks rising one after another, their snowy peaks tipped with the red light of the rising sun. Gimli had only seen these sacred mountains in the distance as he journeyed: his people crossed the hills far to the North in these dangerous days. Never has he seen them so close: not in waking life. He went to stand beside Gandalf and the hobbits, and somehow, Legolas was found at his side as well.

Gimli felt his heart fill; he could not help but speak out loud, though he was alone among outsiders. It felt strange to bare his feelings so, but the spirit in him would have its tongue.

 “There is the land where our Fathers worked of old, and we have wrought the image of those mountains into many songs and tales. They stand tall in our dreams: Baraz, Zirak, Shathur. Dark is the water of Kheled-zaram, and cold are the springs of Kibil-nala. My heart trembles at the thought that I might see them soon.”

Beside him, Legolas glanced at him swiftly: there was something in his face as if—well, as if he was moved, as if his strange Elven heart was touched, if that were possible.

Gandalf told of an Elven realm that also stood here once: Eregion, long vanished. Suddenly, Legolas knelt down and laid his long hand flat upon the chilled and barren ground. His light hair streamed in the bitter wind, and his fair face was mournful. He said,  “The trees and the grass do not now remember them _._ Only I hear the stones lament them _: deep they delved us, fair they wrought us, high they builded us; but they are gone_.”

“That is a strange thing!”  thought Gimli. “That both he and I may stand here on this spot, and touch in spirit the history and losses of our peoples.” And then he said to himself:  _Oh, he is a person. He is a person, too._

#

It was one of the endless golden afternoons of Lorien, which they spent in such surprising discussions.

In this one, Legolas said to him, “Well, it is poorly said, it is not truthful. For your body is not stunted, but well-shaped and strong. But I see that you have pride in yourself, and bear yourself ever in readiness and confidence.That being so, why do you care what Elves say?”

Gimli thought about it, and said, “It is not for me alone, that I am grieved. It is a slur on all who are dear to me: mother and father, my sister and my teacher, my King and my friends, and all my people in their works and their history and courage. Who are your people to insult us in your very word for us? Mahal made us, and gave us our bodies, and loved us; the Father of Powers gave us our free will. Are you higher than they?”

“I will not use the word, because it offends thee,” said the Elf, quietly.

But to the Dwarf’s surprise, it did not end there. Later he heard Legolas speaking to Haldir and his brothers: “Do not call them Naugrim. Say Dwarves, or Khazâd, or Masters of Stone, _Gonnhirrim_ , if it must be a word of our tongue.”

The other answered in evident annoyance: “ _Naugrim_ is our habit. Has not the word been in use since the First Age? They must be used to it.”

 “Guess again,” said Legolas, drily.

#

“If we are ever back here, I am going to have you properly.” That is what the Elf said to him in Minas Tirith, the night before they rode to their expected doom. And yet they did not die. Gimli stored this in his away in his mind, however: a promise unfulfilled.

They both were tired, by the time they hit the ruined city gates of Minas Tirith after the march back. Rubble and debris were everywhere. The war might have ended: the peace had scarcely begun, and a great weary job of work it would be, he thought. They handed off the horse to the stable, and waved off invitations from fellow soldiers to come share their supper.

Together, they climbed the steep streets of the town. Only the tops of the white walls were still touched with gold; beneath, long evening shadows filled up the narrow streets. Here and there, warm lamplight shone from windows. Sometimes they passed an open door, and the clatter of a kitchen, the scent of dinner cooking, the cry of a child, drifted out.

Legolas began to sing as they walked, his gaze on the sky; his voice was high and sweet and uncanny, and filled the heart with joy tinged with pain, or so Gimli felt it. A few solitary passersby stared, startled, and he saw an old worn woman on a balcony, looking down, listening, her mouth an O. Of course, the Elf did not mind (perhaps did not notice) their wonderment, and Gimli was content to labor up the steep cobbled streets by his side.

 It felt as if they had all the time in the world. They had thought to die together, side by side, in one another’s company, in Mordor. But they did not.

They were back in their quarters. Legolas knelt between his legs; Gimli sat on the bed. His hands were full of silky hair that gleamed in gold in the lamplight. His friend’s mouth was full of his cock. Slick, smooth, warm: good. He felt at once lustful and contented; eager, and yet without hurry.

A part of his mind, fertile in bawdy thoughts as always, found room for a naughty delight: _this one_ in his pride and handsomeness, a Prince, an _Elf_!  Kneeling and serving him so. They are meant to be strangers and enemies: oh, how they would outrage the good and proper folk, if it were known!

But—and here he bent and kissed the other man’s forehead—but he was so very dear. So different from every casual, friendly tumble he ever had before: not only the difference of bodies and of their kinds: something deeper made the moment stand forth among all the embraces he had ever shared.  “Ah, I must not make too much of it. Stay with the job in hand, why don’t you, Gimli?” he chided himself. Aloud he said, “Wait now, haste not. Come up here with me, eh?”

On the bed together, Legolas stretched out on his stomach, his head pillowed on his folded arms. Oil from bathing was on the little table by the bed; not for nothing had Gimli been full of lascivious notions all this hour. He ran his hands over the other’s smooth, strong backside, pushed his legs further apart with an encouraging noise. Worked him, readied him. The expression on the Elf’s face was exquisite, half-turned: eyes closed, lips parted: so nice, so ready for it. He pushed his cock in, slow, steady, all the way. He fucked him, and it was just as good as he thought it might be. It was better.

#

When Gimli and Legolas started lying with one another, after the Fall of Mordor, the Dwarf found his Elf friend to be an excellent bed-partner: clever, willing, ready.  That was not so shocking: have they not been slowly going mad for one another, since months ago?

And though Legolas has talked in circles around whatever his history of love might be, telling nothing directly, Gimli has picked up enough to guess that there _is_ a history, there; he was no chaste innocent, whatever the legends about his people suggested. Gimli could still see him turning away his face, up in the Golden Wood. _“I have never met one whom I would keep to, yet.”_ Aye, but would they not have kept _you_ , if they could? This he wondered.

But if he was not astonished to find the Elf experienced in desire, there were things that he _did_ find surprising. How greatly Legolas longed to be petted and caressed, made much of, and held. For all his athletic willingness in the acts themselves, there was a soft, sweet pleasure that came to his face only when Gimli wrapped his arms around him after, and said to him, “You fine fellow, you brave lovely lad, I could stay in you for the whole night, I could.”

When they were in public, they remained the same jolly comrades as ever; they teased and they jested, they wrangled and sang and rode hard, they fought for the King when he needed and took on the work of the new Kingdom, as if they were simply a pair of gallant companions, as many saw them.

But when they were alone, Legolas said to Gimli, as if off-hand: “I like it when you tell me things,” which was not articulate, but Gimli parsed it anyway. It was an easy and pleasurable coin to pay in, to whisper dirty, admiring, affectionate things in his ear, and attend to him in the way he liked.

One time, while they were in bed together,  the Elf asked, half-languorously, his face turned away, “What do you like about me?” Now Gimli liked many things about him, and told him often, so he thought about this question and what might lie behind it.

“Well, I could pick a favorite part,” running his hand appreciatively over the other’s long, warm body, “but I won’t. For I like _all_ of you: the sweet and the bitter, the fierce and the joyful, the arrogant ( _pulling gently at his hair_ ) and the kindly. For it is all a part of you, the whole of you, and it is you who I like best.”

Legolas looked at him with shining eyes, and kissed him as if he would never stop. So that was the right answer, it seemed.

And yet there was something here that bothered Gimli: that his friend looked at him at times with such evident wonderment, as he listened; a pleased startle that showed in his slow smile, and made the Dwarf’s chest tighten. As if Legolas were not in the habit of hearing such things, as if they were not familiar and expected. And how is this—how is it he is versed in body about love-making, but finds it fresh news to be told he is fine and brave and sweet and excellent, that he is treasured?

 It did not seem probable. And yet, he began to think it was so. Why was there no woodland-Arwen, or no boy-Arwen as it were; how has Legolas been living all these long years, and yet come to them in the Fellowship trailing nobody’s devotion? Are they blind and heartless, up there in the far away woods? _Someone in the Forest Realm has made a damned poor job of things,_ he suspected. The fools. _Their loss, my gain_ , a trader might say. And yet it made him angry.

#

Each people in the world have their fools, Gimli has observed. They meet some, even in that happy city, even in that happy summer.

One time, they were in a roistering tavern of the lower circle, with some of the masons and workers with whom Gimli had been working on the siege-battered city walls. As they passed by a table of drunken soldiers, one shouted, “Fair face like a woman, that Elf! Does he even have a cock?”

But before either of them could raise a fist in reply, Barda, the great rude forewoman of the stone-hewers, shouldered towards the roisterers, crying: “Why, your wife told me the Elf lad’s prick was twice as long as _yours_ , Polder, you ugly dog! And that he put it better use!”

“Gravel and gold, Barda!” said Gimli, with an expression of outrage on his face. “Why, his wife told me the same of _mine_! I’m beginning to think she is no honest woman!”

The tavern rejoiced in the dismay of the poor soldier, with much roaring and spilling of drinks. Several completely unrelated fights broke out over the honor of _other_ people’s wives and husbands, and so it passed off.

Another time, they were coming away from one of Aragorn's councils. The half-familiar man who approached them had never stood out in any way from his fellows: a middle-aged noble of Gondor, soberly dressed, somewhat prim of face.

He waited for them, in a quiet arcade of arches, where sunlight and shade made alternating play upon ancient tiles. In a mosaic on the wall, Gil-Galad and Elendil marched in faded splendor to their victory and doom. In the present, the man said quietly, "You are foul."

 They paused together in surprise.

 "—Foul, foreign creatures. We see what Elessar is doing, bringing sorcerous wights into our city, into our affairs. You are _unnatural_."

Red in face, the man paused, then spat out more words as if he had been holding them sourly in his mouth. "And if you think that people don't see you scheming behind your whorish pretty face, Elf, you and this dirty little Dwarf and the alien Queen . . ."

There was more, a trailing stream of vile words and viler impulses, but it was much the same.

And if this man were in the service of Saruman or of Sauron, if he were an orc or a warrior, or even a strong brute like the foul-mouthed fellow in the tavern, they would have known what to do.

But he was not. He was simply a weakling Man, with drooping jowls on his face, and spindly, city-bred limbs. Either of them could have crumpled him at a blow; broke his neck, split his head, dispatched him with a weapon in less time than it would take to tell a good jest.

Instead, Gimli said shortly, “King Elessar has opened a door for your people, sir, and through it lies hope. If you will not pass in, that is your affair, not ours. If you have words to say to us, then say them in the council room, instead of skulking here like a cowardly cur.”

They left him where he stood and walked off homeward. Each stayed silent at they went.

Back in their little lodge, Gimli put his weapon and cloak away, and found himself standing at the great table that held his plans and drawings of the city. And yet his heart burned; he could not set down to the work. He turned: Legolas had thrown himself down on the bed, and was staring at the ceiling, so he went and lay down beside him.

“What think you?” he said, after a while.

“What am I scheming, you mean, behind my pretty whore face—”

“Don’t,” cried Gimli, angrily, turning on his side and taking his friend by the shoulder, “Even in jest—”

Legolas turned to look at him, thoughtfully. “You threatened to kill Éomer for disrespect to Galadriel far less than that.”

“It was different,” said Gimli. “That was only—two dogs growling at one another, when they met.” 

“The littler barking at the big!” said Legolas, kissing him, and toying disrespectfully with the braid in his beard.

“Even so,” said Gimli. “And Éomer is a sweet and honorable man, and soon we knew each other better, and were friends. But this recreant today: that was not an _ignorance_ , to be corrected with wit, that was _malice_. I would not soil your name and the Queen’s in reproving him. He could no more know the jewel of your worth than the distance from earth to the stars.”

“Ah, eloquent!” Another kiss, from Legolas, and Gimli traced his hand along the line of his face, over his ear, which drew a bite of the lip, and down to his smooth jaw.  “And is this the surly Khazâd I met in Imladris, who said of the Elves—-”

But Gimli cut his words off, with a passionate kiss in return.

“At that moment, though, in the plains of Rohan,” said Legolas, returning to the memory with a reflective look on his fair face.  “I really wished to put an arrow through our friend the horse lord. For all I knew was that he threatened you.”

“I know it,” Gimli replied. “How it went to my heart, that you drew your weapon for me in an instant, though my boast was rash and unwise. I am surprised I was able to keep running across Rohan that day, and did not throw myself down at your feet. You could not have seduced a Dwarf more effectively, if you had appeared before me naked with a barrow full of diamonds!”

At this, Legolas laughed, and continued laughing for so long that at last Gimli punched him, albeit gently.

The Prince of the Woodland Realm turned on the bed, then, and began pulling off Gimli’s clothes, though he pointed out that it was hardly evening yet. Still, he did not resist. And when they were both stripped, his friend indicated he should lie on his back, and he did, and the other pushed his limbs about till he was laid out with his knees up and his legs spread, like a wanton.

Gimli thought, _He could do anything with me, and I should like it,_ and then he told Legolas that, aloud. “Oh yes, I will make sure of it,” Legolas replied, and leaned above him, with his long silver blond hair hanging down, and a mingled expression of lust and tenderness, and worked his pretty cock into him, and fucked him with enthusiasm for a long, long time.

As they moved together, Gimli felt his climax building in great sweetness, and he fisted his cock as Legolas shoved into him over and over, and came warm on his own stomach. “Do not stop,” he whispered hoarsely, “I do not think to,” said the other, with a wicked thrusting motion of his hips, that made Gimli grunt. Legolas went on using him, with a delightful spoiled selfishness, just as long as his Elven endurance held out, and Gimli liked it, for he had surrendered utterly in his heart and in his body, and he knew it. At last, his friend did finish, with a gasping cry. All spent, he lay on him quietly for some time, before his softened cock slipped out.

He rolled to one side, and put his hand on Gimli’s. He said something in his birdlike Silvan language, quiet and heartfelt. Though he did not know the meaning, Gimli lay content.

#

Soon the summer of Minas Tirith, the summer of the King, with all its ceremonies and joys, would end, and then they would ride north.

Many were the complexities of the host that was to ride forth from the city: it encompassed the King and Arwen and their parting with Elrond, and Galadriel in all her potency and history, for the last era of her long sojourn as an Exile and champion, Éomer and Éowyn to lay dear Theoden in his final rest, and in greater happiness, to make a certain announcement about Faramir. And to journey for final time, together, all who lived of the Fellowship of the Ring, in true companionship.

Amid all that, Legolas and Gimli kept to their private little plan to travel off together when the time came, to Fangorn and the Glittering Caves, to keep the promises they made to one another when the world was ending. The hobbits teased them often about it, but they shrugged and grinned and would not be turned from it. Let people think it strange, to see the Elf and the Dwarf go riding off into the sunset together. It was, after all, a world of wonders.

“After that, I will wend my way home to the Mountain, and yet it is not the same place I left last year, and I am not the same Dwarrow,” Gimli thought. “But since it is happiness that has transformed me, along with fear and sorrow and awe and joy, I do accept it. What the future will bring, we will discover.  And though I do not know how we shall work this thing between us, I know that I stand not alone.”

 #

**Author's Note:**

> This is largely canon-compliant, though it occasionally blends details from both book and movies.
> 
> In fact, this is something of a deep dive into the full range of canon reference points for Gimli and Legolas, and Elves and Dwarves in general. There are elements that draw on The Hobbit, LOTR books and appendices, both Jackson trilogies, and a bit from The Silmarillion, like the origin legend of the Dwarves. 
> 
> However, it should be readable if you haven’t delved into those: that’s just to note the canon touchpoints.
> 
> From the films I borrow the idea of Legolas’ involvement in the Quest for Erebor, though softening it to something less OOC in relation to the Lord of the Rings, and shifting some details of the Council of Elrond.
> 
> There are quite a few direct snippets of language from the books, since both our heroes are given to a much more poetic, elite speech pattern, there, and a shared love of song and verse, that's less present in the films.
> 
>  _Naugrim_ : the Stunted Ones, the word in Silvan Elvish for the Dwarves. Like many fans, I infer that the Dwarves would have taken it as a slur.
> 
> #
> 
> If you kudo, thank you and bless you. Comments are the soul food of this writer nom nom, so if you feel all inclined, it will make me happy!
> 
> On tumblr at [www.tumblr.com/blog/lordnelson100](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/lordnelson100%20) and if you super liked something and want to tell folks, well, thus are the seeds of fic scattered through the land!


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